In this research paper the focus is on analyzing the inter-connectedness of social work in both family services and child welfare.In the case of child welfare form of social activity, social workers base their respective operations in foster and adoption agencies. In these agencies, they are placed at a fair position upon which they can look for information pertaining to cases of child abuse and neglect. For instance, in the United States a report is produced at the end of every two years to reflect on cases of child welfare attributed to abuse and neglect. Upon completion, the report, which is produced by each and every state, is submitted to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) for purposes of future reference (Childwelfare.Gov, 2010). In the United States, family services is a form of social activity whose goal is to assist the unfortunate families by way of counseling and impacting them with hope for a better future. The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) is the core agency dealing with family services as a whole. This agency is primarily stationed at the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Another agency, Assistance for Needy Families, works with the aforementioned agency to support needy families in the US.
Since child welfare and family services are forms of social activities entailing similar operations, it is safe to assume that the skills and knowledge required are also similar in nature. Firstly, social workers dealing with child welfare and family services need to understand that they have to put aside their individual narrow-mindedness in order to provide sound and clinical solutions to plights affecting families as well as children. This manner calls for total honesty since personal evaluations reflect individual faults and beliefs which are assumedly put aside by a social worker for the purpose of attending to others without discrimination. Secondly, an effective social worker is expected to have had expansive exposure on matters pertaining to crisis management. In this case, intense patience is needed in the course of listening to affected families as well as abused children. This knowledge is also necessary in formulation of strategies needed for response purposes (Sheafor, Morales & Scott, 2012).
Thirdly, social workers are advised to often take duty-leaves which are meant for relaxation. This is because of the intensive impacts they experience with many family secrets which they are not required to disclose except on a need-to-know basis. Stress is another factor that is highly attributed to social work especially because caseworkers get to meet occurrences which are inhumane in nature. In the sense that the work entails verbal threats and physical abuse, a social worker is expected to possess the urge to offer services voluntarily and be keen to matters happening around them: being alert at all times. Social workers are expected to possess emotional maturity needed to tackle tension and nervousness especially when formulating sound decisions affecting children and families’ altogether. It calls for positive attitude and kind-heartedness since it will be tough to handle certain matters pertaining to abuse and mistreatment of both children and some of family members (Sheafor, Morales & Scott, 2012).